Northwest Reverb - Reflections by James Bash and others about classical music in the Pacific Northwest and beyond

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet inspires in Portland Piano International recital

Review by Jeff Winslow

We all have our dream programs for piano recitals.Jean-Efflam
Bavouzet, for his November 24th performance in Lincoln Hall at Portland
State University, came up with one which would serve for me:Beethoven's
"Pastorale" sonata op. 28, Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit," the first
seven Debussy preludes, and Bartok's only solo piano Sonata. The
Beethoven was changed along the way to the Waldstein sonata, close
enough. But the trouble with dream programs is that they're usually
coupled with dream interpretations. Touring pianists usually have strong
personalities and opinions – what are the chances his dreams would be
mine?

Don't
hold your breath. But many of his interpretations were so close they
did feel like affirmations. I wasn't usually converted by the ones which
were very different, but I was always moved to serious consideration.
Technique was never the issue. True, in passages of the most
hair-raising digital difficulty, Bavouzet was often not the note-perfect
machine that seems de rigueur these days, even when it comes at the
expense of going all out. But as the concert developed, every time I
wished he had played something a different way, I could at the same time
recall something else he had played just that way. His control over
shadings of tone, dynamics and pedaling was superb. And yet he didn't
shrink from taking risks, even when some left him hanging by his
fingernails. The overall impression was one of passion, argument and
engaging narrative.

The
Waldstein set the course for the whole program. Bavouzet's tempo was
moderate, if still plenty challenging, giving the composer's
inspirations time to blossom. The pianistoffered
a generous whiff of the flowers, for example, near the beginning of the
recapitulation in the first movement, where Beethoven seems to forget
about celebrating the return to the home key and temporarily heads for
la-la land. The final prestissimo was all the more electrifying, its
exuberance aided by flawless octave glissandi. And yet it couldn't be
called a Romantic interpretation. Bavouzet's bio mentions working
closely with Pierre Boulez, and it wasn't hard to imagine the influence
of the famous French composer, conductor, and theorist – always
intelligent, always musical, not without hedonism but perhaps somewhat
too consciously intellectual.

And
yet, with "Ondine," the opening Ravel movement, I was completely
carried away. The pianistic world seems to have finally found the key to
"Gaspard", if the number of young virtuosi peddling the classic test
piece in recent years is any indication. And yet, how often have I
listened with amazement to a flawless rendition, while at the same time
nostalgic for the poetry of, say, Ashkenazy's stellar recording from my
formative years in the 60s. In particular, these pianists seem to forget
that "Ondine" is a seduction. Bavouzet did not for one second forget!
He gave the nymph all the time she needed to sing irresistibly out of
her watery home – and his treatment of a couple of glissandi which morph
into arpeggios was beyond perfection, utterly magical – but when it
came time for her to make her move, the wave crashed with harmonious
abandon, impossible to outrun.

"Le
Gibet," in contrast, was unsettling, and no doubt was intended to stand
out from the usual atmospherically gloomy interpretation. Bavouzet
seemed to emphasize the central image of a hanged body reddened by the
setting sun by putting some bite into the repeated tolling of the B-flat
octave. But the text that inspired the work refers only to a bell "below
the horizon" and other faint sounds. That octave was anything but, and
quickly wore out its welcome.

The
fantastic, and fantastically difficult "Scarbo" instantly drew us back
in again as Bavouzet seemed to transmute the terrors any pianist must feel, contemplating its performance, into a totally absorbing narrative. If it had been a movie, it would have been Hitchcock.If
anything I wished he had taken more of the opportunities Ravel presents
to mercurially break up the often driving rhythm. But he was master of
the terrifying climaxes, and the maddeningly offhand ending was perfect.

The
first seven Debussy preludes finally gave us a chance to hear Bavouzet
take on quintessentially French repertoire. And, while they do offer
many technical challenges, unlike "Gaspard" they are nothing for a
pianist of his caliber to lose any sleep over. Again the range of
interpretations was fascinating. What stood out all through was
Bavouzet's devotion to clarity and balance. He studiously avoided the
pedal-drenched wash many pianists associate with Debussy. Too studiously
in the atmospheric preludes "Voiles," which was merely restless, and
"Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir," which seemed
rather anxious to get indoors before curfew, but which had beautifully
judged passages including the tricky final fadeout. On the other hand,
"Danseuses de Delphes," "Les collines d'Anacapri," "Des pas sur la
neige," and "Ce qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest" were all sharply etched, highly
engaging anecdotes. Notable moments were one inspired pedal wash that
added poignancy to a "melancholy memory" in "Des pas sur la neige," and
the dramatically shaped final climax in the rambunctious "Ce qu'a vu le
vent d'Ouest," leading to a perfect slam-bang finish. This last work is
one of the few preludes that approaches "Gaspard"-like virtuosity, and
again, Bavouzet's brisk but moderate tempo enabled him to put on an awe-inspiring display where many pianists merely scamper.

There
was absolutely no scampering, either, in Bartok's only piano sonata, an
inexorable and irrepressible work, which Bartok himself was careful to
play only before the most musically sophisticated audiences of his time.
Today's audiences, having been exposed to punk rock and distortion effects,
are less easily fazed. The first movement's signature repeated octaves
pounded home with devastating effect while surrounding outbursts cut in
like a flock of hatchets – not to punish the piano or audience, on the
contrary, to sculpt a thing of wild beauty like a granite crag. In the
slow movement, in which the repetition is stretched out across plangent
dissonances like distant tolling bells, Bavouzet's apparent
aversion to atmosphere led him astray, creating a dry, even sterile
artifact. However, he again tuned in brilliantly to the dangerously,
even insanely exuberant finale, and the final explosion elicited a huge
ovation from the sold-out crowd.

One
would think Bavouzet would be about ready to drop, but he strode out
and gave us "something calmer" as he wryly put it, the eighth Debussy
prelude, "La fille aux cheveux de lin," for an encore. There are a
couple of weaving passages, like a lover's hands running through long
wavy hair, I wish he had lingered over, but even so, it was another exquisitely drawn image. If only the audience had let the final harmony ring in the ear even a little before obliterating it with their oohs and aahs.

Congratulations
are in order for Portland Piano International and its new artistic
director, Arnaldo Cohen, for luring Jean-Efflam Bavouzet to a rare West
Coast appearance. It may not have been the performance of my dreams in
every detail, but how could that ever be? It was close enough. I left
the hall warmed by a master musician's touch, which unlocked so much of
my innermost world and let it live out loud.

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Jeff Winslow is a composer, pianist, engineer, and a member of Cascadia Composers.